Bye Bye, Utah...Hello California!

On Friday, the 1st, we started our journey to California.  But it was a very full day before that even happened.

Once a month, Sunset Elementary has a program (before school) called ALL PRO DADS that encourages time spent between fathers and their children.  Chick-fil-a provides the breakfast in the school cafeteria while a short presentation is provided.  They end it with these questions for the children and Dad to ask each other.  Such a wonderful program that I was thrilled to know that this elementary school had.  A father's role in the family is so very underrated in today's world.  It is something that I feel very strongly about so as you can imagine, I LOVE THIS PROGRAM!

And as you can see, the fathers and their children do too!

So, the kids went to school while David, Stephen, and some guys from our ward got everything in the moving truck.  I got things cleaned in the house and ran last minute errands that had to be done before we left.  Peggy watched the boys when they got out of school so we could continue to get things taken care of and then finally...

 ...we were off!  Grandma came up to say goodbye before we headed off for Spanish Fork to stay the night at Stephen and Holly's house.

I sure do love the Adams cousins.  They always seem to love us coming and make me feel so good about being a part of their family.  I love spending time with the girls, probably because I don't have any of my own.  But more than anything, I LOVE watching Levi and Brigham while they are around little Stephen.  They clearly look up to him.

The next morning we headed for Las Vegas to spend the evening with Steve, Barbara, and Uncle Aaron.  They had movies and pizza for the boys that night but I think they really loved going to the park when we first got there.  They REALLY needed to get some energy out and Uncle Aaron was glad to provide some ball time.

Sunday morning we left for California.  This was a stop we had to make that was odd for me.  I felt like I was brought back in time about 16 years ago when I went to Europe.  I was on a bus with our tour group when we would have to go through check points like this one.  Of course, it was different because they wanted passports but it still felt odd as each vehicle was stopped to check if we were bringing in fruit, plants, or animals.  Weird.  But I'm telling you, the longer I am here in California, the more and more I am feeling like we are in a foreign country anyways!  Ha!  It is very different here but I can say that I really love it so far.  I LOVE the diversity here.

I may sound pretty positive in this post, but to be honest, this has been a real hard move on me.  I have learned some things for our next move, though.  It is NOT a good idea to move and the very next day have my husband gone all day at work...in a city I know nothing about.  Being cooped up in a car for so long makes for REALLY hyper boys that just don't mix well in a hotel!  I hurt physically from the moving, I was a little nervous, and to make it so much worse it was a certain time of the month.  I was not handling the boys very well at all.  The one positive thing I can say, though, is that it wasn't depression.  It was from physical pain that I couldn't do anything about.  So, I finally let the kids just get their energy out by jumping back and forth on the hotel beds...yeah, wasn't a good idea.  Levi ended up accidentally trampling on Hyrum which sent him flying into the bed railing.  He ended up with a blood blister on the back of his head as well as a large bump.  I felt so bad for him that I took him to Wal-Mart to find him something fun to play with in the bathtub.

My initial feeling of Tracy was that it is way too big but the longer I am here, the more and more I like it.   I love our town home, our ward has really stepped up with helping us move in and even bringing things over for us while we get settled, but my favorite is probably the school.  It is a large school (1,000 students) but amazingly it doesn't make me nervous to send my kids there.  It probably helps that the staff there has been really good to us so far. California is very picky about everything that needs to be done before a child goes to school.  I am used to the usual vaccinations, birth certificates, and transcripts but they add doctor and dentist visits.  If that wasn't irritating enough for someone who hasn't gotten our insurance cards in yet, we also have to prove our residence.  They want a lease agreement as well as utilities.  Geez!  Another hard thing to get when your utilities haven't even started up yet (we were still in the hotel while waiting for our town home to open up).

The older boys FINALLY got to go to school today while Hyrum has to wait till Tuesday.  

But I am not irratated with the school itself.  I really like the people that work there.  They have been so good to us.  The other day, Brigham and Levi were messing around and ended up pushing Hyrum into the concrete, head first.  Poor baby!  But the staff was right on it, taking care of him and they weren't even students there yet.  Mr. Lopez (the Assistant Principle) needed us to fill out this form because Hyrum was on school property and what I was most impressed with is that he never pressured me to say that it was NOT the school's fault.  He wanted to make sure that if I felt that Hyrum needed to see a doctor that it was provided.  This same man came to my rescue today as I went to pick up Levi and  Brigham from school and I couldn't find them anywhere!  We looked for 15 or so minutes before I left to see if they had walked home (which they had).  Mr. Lopez wanted me to call right away if I found them at home.

The other thing I love about this school is that my boys are part of the minority race.  One thing that I really like about all our moves is that it has placed my children in so many different cultures.  I feel they are well rounded in that area with not a single prejudice bone in their body.  I took Levi into his classroom today and he was one of 3 white children in his class.  The majority of the children are Hispanic so I am hoping the boys will walk away with a few Spanish words under their belt :)

But what I am happiest to report is that while we were moving boxes in, the boys met their first friend.  By the next day, they had another friend.  These 2 boys come over every day now!  I am really grateful for them too.  They are good boys and always listen to me.  They also are keeping my boys happy because they really want to play outside but I just cant take them right now because I am unpacking.

Give it time, boys...

 (Hyrum, Sam, Levi, Brigham and Dushan)